


too lost and hurting to carry your load

by Devious_Tree



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Malcolm’s perception of his own importance is hurt and that’s what JT comforts him about, Mild Hurt/Comfort, also he broke his collarbone, everybody loves you bitch. let’s go get you some self esteem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24389482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devious_Tree/pseuds/Devious_Tree
Summary: It was rare to see Bright out of his usual three-piece suit, but it had become a more common occurrence over the past two weeks because it‘s hard to keep a suit jacket up when one of your arms is tucked to your chest in a sling.OR Malcolm keeps getting hurt and JT is having Emotions over it—————For the prompt “On purpose. On purpose, I am going to care about you”
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	too lost and hurting to carry your load

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nighting_gale17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighting_gale17/gifts).



> That quote crossed my dash and my brain said 'you know who probably has a really low perception of their self-worth and could use someone grabbing their face and telling them they're loved?' and now we're here (also in part to Malcolm wearing casual clothes in the finale and me, a disaster gay, going feral over it but w/e)  
> Also, this is for Cait cause it's her fault that I watched this show in the first place and I owe her for it
> 
> title from Someone To Stay by Vancouver Sleep Clinic

If Bright didn’t stop injuring himself, JT is going to kill him.

He’s sitting across the conference table from the man in question, staring at the profiler instead of the case files the two of them are staying late to look over. It was rare to see Bright out of his usual three-piece suit, but it had become a more common occurrence over the past two weeks because it‘s hard to keep a suit jacket up when one of your arms is tucked to your chest in a sling. So the sight of Malcolm in slim-fit jeans and soft looking sweaters is becoming the new norm (and will continue to be for at least another four weeks according to Bright’s doctor).

However, it’s also raising a lot of conflicting questions and emotions in JT. Such as ‘have his legs always been that nice?’ and ‘why the hell do I care what his legs look like?’ among others, like ‘that sweater somehow makes his eyes look _bluer_ , is that even _possible_?’ and ‘why do I have a frame of reference for the shade of Bright’s eyes?’. Really, Bright in casual clothes is causing him a lot of internal turmoil for a reason he can’t figure out, and he’s kind of freaking out about it.

“Is there a bug on me or something?”

The question catches him off guard as he realises he’s been caught staring. He wonders how long he’s been looking and, more importantly, how long he had been observed in return. He shakes his head and looks down, in part to return his attention back to the file in front of him and in part to hide the heat rising to his face.

“Nah, man. Just zonin’,” Bright makes a noncommittal hum in response before also returning his attention to his own folder of evidence. JT rereads the same three lines of a witness statement five times over before he finally gives up on trying to convince himself he can focus on the case and lets his thoughts drift back to Bright.

The broken collarbone, which is actually two separate fractures on his clavicle, is just the latest in a long line of bad situations Bright has gotten himself into lately. (And, no matter how many times Bright insists they were accidents, JT knows of at least three that were intentional for the purpose of trying to get closer to the suspect for some reason or another.) Prior to the collarbone was the black eye that hadn’t even finished healing before he broke his collarbone. Before that were the bruised ribs that didn’t let him sit comfortably for a week. And before _that_ was the 37 stitches as a result of the stab wound that was “just in the meaty part of my thigh, I’m totally fine, guys, really!” Bright had tried to insist while sat on the floor, propped up against the wall, knife still lodged in his leg.

All of the injuries bugged him for some reason but the collarbone, strangely, bothered him the most. The guy that had been their number one suspect from the beginning of the case had finally slipped up enough that they could move in for the arrest. They were at the shipping warehouse that was under his family’s name, he and Gil heading along the east wall while Dani and Bright took the west. They lost eyes on Bright and Dani when the two rounded a makeshift dividing wall, and that same moment a mountain of empty plastic containers rained down on himself and Gil. By the time they managed to uncover themselves and run to where they heard a commotion, Dani had their suspect in handcuffs and was yelling at Bright, who had been sitting in the middle of the room holding his left arm to his body like it was about to fall off.

Dani recounted it to him later when the two of them were sitting in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs waiting for Gil and Bright, who they had taken up to x-ray. When the boxes had fallen on him and Gil, Bright had started to double back to check on them. Dani turned towards the noise only to take a baseball bat to the hand, which the paramedics had already checked and cleared her for on the scene since the close range didn’t give their suspect much space to get a forceful enough swing to be able to break anything.

It did, however, cause her to lose her grip on her gun, service weapon sliding across the floor and Dani following it down, knocked off balance by the bodycheck their suspect gave her. She thought quickly and managed to sweep a leg out from under him, and though he caught his fall toward the end, it was not before introducing his skull to the concrete. It gave her just enough time to hide behind some crates an adequate distance away so that she could radio for backup, knowing she wouldn’t be able to take him down alone with no gun and a possibly broken hand. That’s when it happened.

She had heard their suspect’s footsteps coming towards her, bat dragging along the concrete like he thought this was a damn horror movie, and then she heard Bright. Bright, who had apparently doubled back to Dani on his double back to them, and was then shouting at their suspect to take his attention away from Dani. This, obviously, had the side effect that now his attention was solely on the profiler who was standing, unarmed, in front of an angry man with a bat, and loudly pointing out all the different flaws in his psyche. To the surprise of absolutely no one, it pissed the guy off and caused him to swing at Bright, who had the misfortune of being far enough away from the suspect that he _could_ get a powerful swing in this time, probably aimed at Bright’s head but only managing to catch him in the shoulder.

When Bright fell to the floor, Dani managed to take the guy by surprise and tackle him, reintroducing his head to the concrete none too gently and slapping a pair of cuffs on the nearly unconscious man while shouting at Bright to make sure he was okay. That was where he and Gil had arrived and he knew what happened next; the medics telling Bright he had to go to the hospital, Bright insisting that he ride in Gil’s car and not the ambulance, getting to the hospital and being told they had to wait out in the lobby, Gil texting them about x-rays, and finally Bright walking back out with his suit jacket half on, arm in a sling, and smiling like a man who didn’t just have a bone broken in two locations. It both relieved JT that he was okay and infuriated him that Bright could be so flippant about the injury.

He doesn’t know what to do with those emotions, and frankly, he’s hoping it will just go away so he’ll never have to examine it closer.

“I’ve got it!” Bright’s voice breaks through his trance and he ~~embarrassingly~~ frustratingly finds he has been staring at Bright again. The profiler pays him no mind though, suddenly energized and engrossed in taping things to the evidence board and scribbling furiously on papers. JT doesn’t know what it is the profiler “got”, but if it means that their late nights pouring over case files has actually given them something, JT is excited to have it confusingly explained to him.

“We’ve been looking at the individual locations, what they could mean to her, what they could’ve meant to the victims, their proximity to other places in the suspect or victims’ lives, et cetera. But what about their links to each other?” Bright turns from the board and smiles at JT expectantly, but he can only raise an eyebrow in response. Bright rolls his eyes but he’s still grinning widely as he picks up a pen and starts drawing on the map they’ve put up of the locations they’ve found victims or any of their suspect’s “clues”.

“Here,” he places the pen on one of the locations, “this is where we found the first victim. Now we draw a line to where we found the first clue, then to the second victim. If we follow the locations in the order in which we were led to them, the killer is playing connect the dots.” Bright says it with what would be a disturbing amount of glee, considering they’re talking about murder, but it’s just a level of murder-derived glee JT has become accustomed to.

“You’re telling me this lady has been playing a kid’s colouring book game with dead bodies this whole time?” Malcolm’s smile becomes impossibly wider and JT used to be creeped out by that face too, but he’s come to love it because it usually accompanies game-changing breaks in a case….Did he just say he loves Bright’s face?

“I’m telling you we’ll be able to pinpoint the location of the next murder.”

\--

She’s apparently drawing out a constellation. ‘It makes sense now’ Bright explains, still smiling like a kid in a candy store, ‘a constellation tells a story and just as well, there are millions of stars, she could keep adding if she’s never caught.’ JT grimaces at the thought, that she has a contingency plan to potentially murder for the rest of her life, but it fits Bright’s profile that the killer is using the murders for fun, self-expression, and to work out stressors of her personal life. But with this discovery, the profile just got a little more detailed.

Ursa Major, the Great Bear. A story of a woman who fell for a married man full of charm and then was cast out of his life under the guise of protection. They are looking for a single mother, late 20’s to early 30’s, with a young child and a penchant for astronomy and Greek mythology, but more likely an actual astronomer. While the profile has more information now, their suspect pool is still ridiculously large. That’s where the connect the dots comes in.

“She’s converting light-years into a more manageable distance. The formula would take a long time to explain and we’ve both been at this a while, so I won’t bore you with the numbers,” Bright looks up from the map he’s been drawing on and grins at JT like they’re both in on some joke and he can’t help but smile back, elated off the high that the breakthrough in the case has caused and Bright’s frantic energy. “Now, the next “star” she could be going to is either of these two locations in the “leg”, but based on her previous patterns, my money’s on this one.”

He circles a small section of city block multiple times, having narrowed it down to a handful of buildings presumably using that formula he mentioned earlier, and flashes him yet another smile JT is helpless to return. They break into the files and investigate the buildings with renewed vigour, hopeful that before the morning comes they’ll have a plan to catch this woman. JT confines it to a small stretch of sidewalk within the boundaries of the “star” Bright has drawn up. It passes by three alleyways and two buildings available for purchase, all perfect and easy locations to murder someone and hide a body.

“So what, we have to just stand across the street and wait for her?” Bright shakes his head, tapping the pen on his slung up arm and staring at the map deep in thought.

“No,” he mumbles and JT barely hears him even though he’s standing directly across the conference room table from him. “No, the profile is still too vague, there’d be too many women passing through that would be potential suspects. Plus, she’s been following a pattern of the time in between murders. Who knows how she’ll react if we ruin that schedule by questioning people in the area and making it impossible for her to add the next star.” JT hums in agreeance. Upsetting the killer, that kills to relieve stress, but not catching her? It’s not something they can risk.

“We need a plan,” JT adds gruffly. Bright looks up at him, but his eyes are far off like he’s seeing something else entirely, and the look of revelation on his face is a sign JT isn’t going to like whatever he says next.

“We need bait.”

JT looks down at his hands on the table shaking his head harshly, “There’s gotta be a better way,” but Bright carries on like JT hasn’t said a word

“This whole time she’s been a ‘murder of opportunity’ killer as far as picking victims go, but they still were all upper middle class or lower upper class just because of the area she’s been operating in. It makes the most sense then that I act as the bait to-” JT’s head whips up so fast it startles Bright and the profiler jumps a little bit.

“Absolutely not,” Bright’s eyebrows come together and his head tilts like a damn puppy. He opens his mouth, probably to protest, so JT is the one who barrels on this time, “We are not using you as bait to lure out a serial killer who has so far managed to overpower both a 6’ 4” 230lbs man with prior assault charges and a semi-pro mixed martial arts fighter. No offence, I know you have your fancy FBI training, but you’d be easier to pick off than either of them considering you would literally be fighting with one arm tied.”

Bright’s eyebrows stay scrunched together, but the look on his face shifts from questioning puppy to defensive guard dog. “Who else would it be? You, Dani, and Gil are the essential members of the team and it’s the only plan we’ve got that might work without gambling with a civilian’s life. I’m the only option we have left. The plan is too dangerous to risk anyone non-expendable.”

He says it with such conviction. The casual, throw-away tone of the explanation is, underneath the seriousness, the same someone would use to tell you water is wet and fire is hot. Bright seems to take his silence as an admittance of defeat, like JT _agrees_ with his statements, and continues to talk about the logistics of the plan. However, JT can’t really make out what he’s saying over the sound of ‘who else’ and ‘only option’ and ‘ _expendable_ ’ ringing in his ear.

“JT, are you listening?” He looks up at the profiler and searches his face for any trace of humour even though he knows he won’t find any.

“What the hell did you just say?” and he can see Bright start to smirk and knows he’s about to repeat his question to deflect with a joke but watches his face drop as he decides against it. He lets out a deep sigh like someone who’s had this conversation too many times and realised the time has come to have it again.

“JT, c’mon. Gil is a lieutenant and the reason the team exists at all. You and Dani have worked hard to earn your titles and continue to prove yourselves as essential parts of this team day in and day out through literal blood and sweat. If any of you are taken away, the team isn’t complete anymore. I’m...peripheral. Since the beginning, I’ve just been an often unwanted tag along, like a flea on a dog. I’m just the consultant who isn’t even allowed to hold a gun and has to be saved all the time. A liability at best.”

JT is furious. Bright’s words roll over him like crawling hands on his body and an inexplicable anger is simmering under his skin, threatening to boil over. He’s pissed at anyone who's heard this speech before and agreed with the sentiment. He’s pissed at anyone who’s treated Bright so poorly that he’s come to believe this with such certainty. He’s pissed at _himself_ when he remembers that _he_ spent the first months after Bright joined them treating him in a way that reinforced his belief that he is to this team like a _flea on a dog_.

His voice comes out low, only because he’s scared that if he tries to talk any louder he’ll start yelling. “That is wildly untrue,” Bright opens his mouth again and JT holds up a hand. “No, it’s my turn to talk now. How in the hell could you believe you aren’t an essential part of this team? Do you have any idea how much you do? You offer so much insight we would’ve never thought about, pick up so many crucial details we dismiss as unimportant. And suspects. I can’t keep track of how many perps you’ve talked down that we wouldn’t have hesitated to take down by force,” Bright deflates, but it’s not in a reassured way, no it looks more like resignation. “How do you not see how important you are? To m- to us.”

When the profiler looks up, JT hopes his near slip isn’t obvious on his face. He doesn’t understand why he almost said it. And, just like with the injuries, he doesn’t understand why he’s so _upset_ over what Bright said. More upset than a teammate would be, probably even more than a friend would be. Bright looks at him with pleading, tired eyes, like he doesn’t want to fight over this.

“You don’t have to placate me, JT,” and he just keeps surprising JT tonight because, wow. For one of the smartest men he’s ever met, Bright still doesn’t _get it_. “I’m used to this by now, I’ve had years of practice. I’m used to people only caring or being concerned about me as an afterthought, or obligatorily when they need something from me. I’m totally fine, really, it’s okay.”

And that’s when it suddenly clicks for him. Something about the way Bright thinks so lowly of himself that he can’t recognise how sincere JT is in telling him otherwise. Something about ‘caring as an obligation’. The reason he’s been so upset whenever Bright puts himself in danger willingly and without hesitation in the name of taking down a killer is because JT is _worried_ about him.

The kind of worry you feel about someone who is _way_ _more_ than a friend. The kind of worry you get when someone who means a lot to you never calls to say they made it home safe after you let them walk home in the dark. The kind of worry that pairs readily with guilt because there must have been something you could’ve done to prevent it, right? He should always be faster to take down a killer before Malcolm can get hurt. The kind of worry that makes him ask ‘what could I have done to stop him from thinking of himself like this? What should I have done _differently_?’ The kind of worry that makes him ask ‘What can I do about it _now_?’

The kind of worry that makes him realise he _cares_ , that he has cared for a while and it never once felt like an obligation

JT squares his shoulders and practically marches around the conference table to the same side as Malcolm. That scrunched brow, head tilted, confused puppy dog look is back, but now with an added layer of hesitance as JT comes to a stop with less than a foot of space between them. He lifts his hands, hesitating for a second when Malcolm flinches at the sudden movement but continues his path until the profiler’s dazed and blushing face is held gently in his hands. They spend a moment just staring at each other searchingly, Malcolm for an explanation and JT for just a hint that he might feel the same way, that JT isn’t about to mess this up. When he feels Malcolm lean into one of his hands, the shift so slight that he’s 100% positive it is not a conscious movement, his head tilts forward (just as slightly, just as unconscious) in response and he finally finds his words again.

“On purpose. On _purpose,_ I am going to care about you.”

Malcolm’s eyes flicker quickly across JT’s face, and he must find whatever he’s looking for because he makes a noise like a whine before surging up and capturing JT’s lips with his own. Even though this is the response he was hoping for, he’s still knocked off-kilter for a moment before he responds in kind, using his hands still on Malcolm’s face to tilt his head and slow the kiss a little (and of course he kisses how he lives, attention focused solely on the task at hand and vibrating with barely contained chaotic energy). He feels a hand twist his shirt in its grip, right over his heart, and JT’s hand moves of its own accord to tangle in the shorter strands of Malcolm’s hair at the back of his neck, tugging lightly and innocently to change the angle once more, but Malcolm groans softly and presses himself farther into JT’s body.

Then he’s groaning for another reason entirely as he pulls away with a hiss and when JT opens his eyes he sees the other man looking down and prodding at his shoulder tenderly, apparently having bumped it while they were kissing.

“Stop pokin’ at it,” he wraps his hand around Malcolm’s to pull it gently away and, when Malcolm looks up at him, he kind of loses his mind a little bit all over again.

His lips are red and just a little wet when his tongue darts out to swipe across them. His eyes (blue, blue, _so damn blue_ ) are a little dazed but still just as sharp and analysing, still collecting data even as JT is just staring dumbly at him, admiring and thinking disbelievingly that they were just making out. His hand moves without his input once more, pulling Malcolm’s hand to his face so he can place a light kiss to the back of his hand while the two of them just watch each other. Malcolm’s breath hitches and he moves his hand to hold JT’s cheek, JT’s own hand holding it in place as he turns to press another kiss to his palm. Look, he didn’t know he was such an affectionate man, but he also didn’t know he was a man who would be interested in ~~(and a little bit in love with)~~ Malcolm Bright, so surprises aplenty tonight. Malcolm smiles.

“Gonna kiss my shoulder and make it better, too?” JT laughs gruffly. His hands fall to Malcolm’s hips (which feel so small in his hands _jesus christ_ ) and pull him closer carefully, conscientious of the man’s broken clavicle. Malcolm’s hand on his cheek moves to the back of his head, pulling JT in as well and smiling. “Or this, this works too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Prodigal Son fic, but there are so many wips in my google docs, so there's that  
> Follow me on Tumblr at [shakybandagehand.tumblr.com](http://www.shakybandagehand.tumblr.com)
> 
> (For reference, the story of Ursa Major is that Callisto (a nymph) does the dirty with Zeus (a known slut) and they have a son. Hera (an exasperated wife who honestly just needs to leave Zeus' bummy ass) finds out and turns Callisto into a bear. Arcas (the son who didn't ask to be born into this mess) runs into the bear, who is actually his mother, in the woods and almost kills her. To make all of his problems disappear, Zeus yeets Callisto and Arcas into the sky and they become the constellations Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and Ursa Minor (the Lesser Bear [which I think is a very rude name but that's beside the point])  
> So basically, the constellation killer in this story is like half in the right, but she should have just murdered the baby daddy who cheated on his wife. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk)


End file.
